


welcome home

by pyrrhlc



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Character Study, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-25
Updated: 2017-10-25
Packaged: 2019-01-23 01:03:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12494932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyrrhlc/pseuds/pyrrhlc
Summary: Peel the scars from off my backI don't need them anymoreYou can throw them out or keep them in your mason jarsI’ve come homeA first look, a first kiss, and a last word.





	welcome home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [talefeathers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/talefeathers/gifts).



It’s the little things that Magnus misses the most.

The first time he saw Julia probably wasn’t the best time, admittedly. Especially not for Julia. Magnus had been as disorientated as he ever had been, his head ringing and ringing, memories swirling, unsettled as snow in a blizzard. Approaching Raven’s Roost would’ve been so easy, had his heart obeyed him and his head rang clear. It would’ve made it so easy. If he hadn’t found work there, if he hadn’t fallen in love—perhaps then, and only then, Raven’s Roost would still be there. Whole. Complete. As secure as the day he’d arrived.

Magnus had always been too deeply engrossed in his feelings, in loving people for the sake of loving them. It would be a shame not to. And there had been so much _life_ in Raven’s Roost, so much goodness…

Julia had been the first to find him, keeled over himself in the dirt, that red, red earth. Someone had left him there, Magnus was sure of it—someone kind, someone strong, weighed down by—what, exactly? Grief?

Yes, grief. She had been so very lonely, as had—

Static filled his head, then, and Magnus had found himself forced not to think of it, almost instinctively afraid of the buzzing that followed him, surrounding him on all sides—

He’d asked her if she could hear it – Magnus remembers that part of their conversation, at least. If one could even _call_ it a conversation. Magnus’s throat had been parched by the dirt; his rasping questions, surely, in any other circumstance, ought to have fallen on deaf ears, deemed incomprehensible, inconsequential. But Julia had answered. Quietly, gently, she had lifted him from the dirt, saved him from the wreckage, calling forth her father—Magnus’s heart clenches as he thinks of him, dark brown surcoat burdened by the weight of his tools, his honest, open face every inch as willing to protect, and do good—pulling him upright and asking for his name. Even now, Magnus cannot think of a time when he was more willing to give it. Even now, in the present, every memory returned to him—no. Magnus had looked at Julia and seen his heart, his home. Something so much more complex than anything else, in all the worlds, in all the planes—

Magnus had forgotten his old home. It had made sense that he would find it again, here. Even after everything had been taken, fragmented—even then, he would find it, and fight for it. A place to call home, at the end of all things. A place to protect—or try to. Magnus would always try, even when all seemed lost. Even when it seemed hopeless, Magnus would fight. He would find a reason for his living, even amongst the static. The memories choked by dust. There was so much, so much he couldn’t recall—

That had been the first time, Magnus thinks. That had been the beginning.

 

*

 

The first time they kissed ought not to have been so remarkable, really.

There hadn’t been anything remarkable about any of it—not the setting, not the sky—nothing about that first kiss would seem special, to anyone other than Magnus. Most, he thinks, probably wouldn’t even _consider_ it a kiss. A quick peck, at most. But it wasn’t the _feeling_ of being kissed that he remembers most vividly. It was the _way_ in which she had kissed him—so casually, so carefree and benevolent—that had floored Magnus so utterly, so completely. Julia gave her love away so freely, and yet, she never once appeared regretful—people needed people, she said, and repeated, lying beside him on the couch that night, well lived-in hands tangled in the small of Magnus’s back, left hand clutching at his forearm. It was so much easier, she said, to give in to that idea of giving, of being generous—love was a well that never gave out. As humble and sincere as—

The rest of the her monologue (Julia, had, admittedly, been ever-so-slightly drunk at the time) Magnus finds had been lost to the years, but even so recalling it still brings a smile to his face. Julia, her eyes full of laughter and love, Julia, her smile turning golden at the edges, Julia, so vulnerable and yet so ferocious. Magnus’s heart swells at the memory of it, chest aching as he recalls the exact layout of the sitting room; Julia’s maps, so carefully crafted and honed, his own wooden ducks, the ducks he never quite seemed able to stop making, the fireplace that roared and simmered, its hazy orange glow casting a shadow over everything Magnus had ever loved. He was home—or at least, home for the moment.

A restless feeling had wormed its way into his chest, then, seeping in through the gaps of scars he couldn’t remember earning, twining around his ribs and crawling, burrowing, nestling—

“Magnus,” Julia had said, and Magnus felt the effect of her words almost instantly, flowing like a salve over the surface of his wounds, “Magnus, look at me.”

Magnus looked. And looked and looked. It didn’t seem to matter that neither of them were completely sober—Magnus was uniform in his sadness, just as Julia was so naturally inclined to be kind and do good. A true paladin, in every sense of the word. Magnus could only admire her courage, afraid as he was in that moment. Afraid of the future and wary of the void that tailed him, presenting itself whenever and wherever the words failed to come. Julia made him feel whole—but only sometimes.

She’d kissed him, then, pressing her mouth to the side of his cheek, eyes shining, sincere in their understanding. Julia did not know, but she tried to—she did not shy away from the enormity of such a challenge, to love someone so terrible and incomplete. It was what Julia had always done. People needed people. And Magnus—

Magnus needed Julia. So very, very badly.

 

*

 

Magnus knows what he last said to Julia. It is stamped across his heart, like an iron brand, like a noose, forever invisible until the climax, until the end, swift and true. But Magnus more than anyone also knows that death was never the worst punishment.

No, true punishment was survival. Living on without another. To remain alive whilst another is gone—Magnus knows intimately that there is no pain like it. Nothing in the world, he thinks, was ever sharper than grief. Conversations began but never properly finished. Commissions accepted but never delivered. Books never read. Books never started.

Words never spoken.

Like the kiss, he would never have remembered it, if it weren’t for what came after. The roar of blood in his ears, the smoke that climbed the sky. The terrible knowledge of it, of _knowing_ , before he’d even seen it, before he’d even smelt the smoke, crawling and corrosive, already so far beyond his control. If only he’d been there, Magnus had thought, if only he’d done things differently. If only he’d loved someone else. Would Julia have been saved, then, at the end of everything? It was always possible. Everything was always possible, if you had time enough to think of it.

Magnus had brought this upon Raven’s Roost, somehow. That was what the guilt spoke of—and the guilt was always right. Never merciful, but truthful. Omnipresent and addictive—that’s what his guilt was. And it would consume him, all of him—

_I love you, Jules._

Magnus’s capacity for fear was strong, but his need to do as he his wife had done, the very principle of needing _people_ , that was so much stronger. _Magnus_ was so much stronger. Guilt, grief—none of it would amount to anything, no matter the timescale. Instead, Magnus would take Julia’s resolve and use it—to guide him, to lead him to where he was most needed. His own words would become a promise.

_I love you, Jules._

Magnus could think of no better cause to fight for, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a mess of different tenses and for that I apologise. Modern-day Magnus is looking back at his time with Julia. You know, for clarification. That said: Sleep! Heaven! Now!
> 
> Title is from [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqi4whXaHx8). Apologies in advance to [@talefeathers](http://archiveofourown.org/users/talefeathers/) for reminding you of the Magnus Tragedy.


End file.
